Elon Musk first promised a tower catch of the Starship ship for 2024, then moved the date 5 times; the current target is Nov 2026. It hasn't happened yet, with 38 days left.
Fetched Oct 23 2026: Wikipedia Starship flight 15 still lists NET November 8; Musk on the Oct 20 earnings call said Flight 15 next month will try to catch both booster and ship. The flight has not launched. Deadline Nov 30 2026. Status stays pending. Wikipedia Starship flight 15 (fetched Oct 23 2026) — NET Nov 8; dual catch not attempted ↗
Elon Musk first made this promise on Oct 5, 2023, with a deadline of Dec 31, 2024. He has said it 4 times on the record. 2 of those statements pushed the date later. The latest target is Nov 30, 2026. It has not happened yet.
On July 25 2026, a day after Starship Flight 13, Elon Musk posted that SpaceX would attempt to catch the Ship — Starship's upper stage — with the launch tower on the next flight, barring problems found in the mission data review. On August 20 2026 he moved that target: SpaceX would 'probably catch the ship with the tower in a few months,' walking back the Flight 14 attempt. SpaceX has routinely caught the Super Heavy booster with the tower's chopstick arms since 2024 but has never tried to catch the returning upper stage.
“But I think the odds of actually catching the booster with the tower probably like 80, 90% this year, which is insane.”
What happened: The launch tower's arms caught the Super Heavy booster on Flight 5, Oct 13 2024. Wikipedia: Starship Flight 5 (booster catch Oct 13 2024) ↗
“We just want—if we can get the damn ship back intact, we can iterate a lot better. I think we'll get it back intact this year. We might be able to refly one with a fair bit of work by the end of this year.”
What happened: Said on JRE #2281 (Feb 28, 2025), so 'this year' = 2025. SpaceX never recovered a Starship upper-stage SHIP intact in 2025. Across all 2025 flights the ship was either destroyed or, at best, did a controlled ocean splashdown and was NOT brought back: Flight 7 (Jan 16) ship exploded over Turks & Caicos; Flight 8 (Mar 6) ship lost attitude control and was lost; Flight 9 (May 27, Ship 35) broke up on re-entry; Flight 10 (Aug 26) made a powered splashdown in the Indian Ocean (not recovered); Flight 11 (Oct 13, the final flight of 2025) softly splashed down in the Indian Ocean then tipped over and exploded. Only the Super Heavy BOOSTER was caught by the tower during 2025 — catching the booster ≠ recovering the ship. No ship was caught by the tower or returned to land intact in 2025. The 'get it back intact this year' milestone was MISSED. Wikipedia: SpaceX Starship — 2025 flight test outcomes (Flights 7-11; all ships expended/lost, none recovered intact) ↗
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